Love and Fortune
by Salazarfalcon
Summary: On a freezing night in a really crappy tent, Silver remembers the old fortune teller who gave him words of pain and love. He tries to untangle Gold's fingers from his and wonders how. Can be taken as platonic or slash, depending on how you squint.


Disclaimer: No.

**Love and Fortune**

When I was younger I'd traveled to a carnival, where I'd begged my father to let me have my fortune told. He'd stared down at me, amused and resigned in that way that I wouldn't see for a very, very long time, before rolling his eyes and handing me some money to take to the lady with the crystal ball.

In retrospect, she was nothing special, just an old crone-like woman hovering over a crystal ball set on a cushion, draped in strands of shining beads and feathers. I thought that she couldn't possibly be anything but magical, sitting in a dimly lit tent with candles and stars. My father had waited outside in acquiescence to the demands of a very stubborn and youthfully boneheaded child, and I remember settling down on the large cushion in front of her table, handing her my money.

She'd taken my hand and stared at the lines on it and had me drink a very small cup of sticky sweet tea, taking my cup and swirling it around to see the leaves. The only question she asked me in all that time was my birthday and the time I was born, which I had to shout out to ask my father. She stared into her ball, silent, until I began to fidget.

"You have quite a road in front of you, little one. It twists and winds like nothing I've ever seen and not even the Fates know just where you'll end up. But one thing is clear, you will find sincerity and you will find love, and you will find frustration and you will find stress. You'll find pain and darkness and fear. But above all else, you will find love, and that love will get you through anything. That much is clear."

I didn't have a clue as to what to make of this.

All I'd wanted to be told was that I'd be an awesome pokémon trainer, and whether or not Father would let me quit my piano lessons soon for everyone's sakes including my own.

I'd sighed and gotten up, and before I left, the old woman pushed the payment back into my hands, smiling and shaking her head.

"I play a lot for the crowd, but I couldn't charge you for this. Reading you was payment enough."

I'd shrugged and exited the tent, latching onto Father's hand. He'd asked me what she said and I told him that it was a secret and that I'd tell him if it came true. He'd laughed but didn't pry anymore and the weight of the coins was comfortable and heavy in my pocket.

I wouldn't tell a soul.

Life went on, and years later, I'd eventually find myself curled up in the woods with a boy I'd sworn I'd hate forever. The wind was cold and absolutely frigid, and the walls of the tent did nothing to break the bluster. Gold and I had started out on separate ends of the tent but at some point he'd migrated over to my side, huddling up against me and digging his hands into the pockets of my pajamas. The bloody heat seeker.

I'd been annoyed and aggravated; his hands were icy and my pockets already occupied and I could have cursed him forever for waking me up just when I'd finally gotten to sleep.

This always seemed to happen and even more frustrating, I'd found myself giving up more and more often, unable to figure out whether it was just easier to avoid the hassle of kicking him back where he came from or whether the closeness somehow made it easier to sleep.

I didn't want him to touch me. I didn't want him near me at all.

The one time I'd been careless and decided to change shirts behind a tree, he'd ducked around it and immediately seen the marks that had once cut into my shoulders and back and collarbone, now pale with age and smooth with lots of vitamin balm. If I had to be marked, something that I couldn't control, I'd at least take care of the skin while I could. I might have been flawed, but no one but me could allow the scars to pucker and callous.

Control was important and secrecy even more so.

Gold had stared and stuttered with shock, gaze unashamedly roving until I glared him into silence, shrugging my shirt back on and stalking off deeper into the forest with a declaration of going fishing. I didn't have my pole or any line or any bait and the closest stream was a mile away, but Gold didn't stop me, an uncharacteristic show of restraint that I appreciated.

Knowing that the other boy was capable of restraint did nothing for the current situation, and I opened a single eye just a crack, glaring at him as if that would make him quit wrapping his ice hands around mine. No luck, of course. He was notorious for this lately, ever since the weather had gone cold and just short of snowing. I'd been fine with just a blanket and pajamas that had long sleeves, but Gold was burrowed into three blankets and long johns and had made attempts to convince me to let him light a fire inside the tent. It was his choice though, to stay outside with me and we both knew it even though we didn't ever talk about it.

Gold was a boy who always had the best, and I was a boy who couldn't feel safe in a pokémon center, with all the warmth and walls and security.

Watching him, I remembered that carnival so long ago and the old woman in the tent. I remembered spending nights thinking about what she could have meant until I gave up, and Father coming into my bedroom at night to check on me, wondering why I wasn't asleep yet. He'd been unable to hide that it had disturbed him, that I wouldn't tell him what she'd said when it was clear that I was still thinking about it.

It had hurt him, that for the first time his open, trusting child was consciously keeping something from him.

I'd never forgotten the words she'd told me, but more than anything else, I'd remembered what she'd said about pain and darkness and fear, and all this time, I'd wondered whether she'd really seen my future or whether it was something that could be told to anyone. There had been times that I'd cursed her for telling me such things, as if knowing her words had helped make them come true. I wondered what she might have said to Blue, if it had been her instead of me. Who didn't suffer at some point? Who wasn't afraid?

I'd suffered more and been more afraid that most people I knew, but what made that so special?

"You will find sincerity and you will find love."

It would take me a few seconds to realize that I'd said the words aloud, disentangling his fingers from mine in my pockets, and I wouldn't be quite sure whether it was my voice or my movement that caused him to stir but not wake, furrowing his eyebrows and burrowing his face into my shoulder, a shiver from the loss of contact running down his frame.

It was his fault that he was cold. I had nothing to do with him choosing the woods and grumpy, prickly me over a warm building.

His fingers had found mine again and instead of giving me a shock of cold, they were slightly warmer. Still chill, but no longer like touching an iceberg. It shouldn't have surprised me. _I_ was warm, and he'd been clinging to my warmth for so long that it shouldn't have surprised me that he'd taken some of it from me.

And was apparently giving it back.

The wind had whistled shrilly, rattling the trees and causing the tent to sway.

For the first time since the weather had gone cold, I'd felt myself shiver as if the wind was scraping daggers teasingly over my skin, and I'd suddenly _understood_ for the first time just why Gold couldn't stay by himself. I couldn't lean into him, not yet, and I couldn't drop my head into his hair. The idea of doing such a thing had sent a stab of terror straight up my spine.

But I'd let him lace his fingers in mine and allow _his_ contact. I might even squeeze his hands in an attempt to press more warmth into him to try and quell the shivers.

"You will find sincerity, and you will find love."

Years after hearing those words, it had only then occurred to me that sincerity and love didn't have to come solely from someone else. That if I was going to look for it, I didn't only have to look in someone other than myself.

In retrospect, in the middle of the woods on a freezing night in a crappy tent with an annoying loudmouth with boundary issues cuddled up against me, I wished that I could find her again and thank her.


End file.
